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a different mirror for young people

A History of Multicultural America

Ronald Takaki Adapted by Rebecca Stefoff

a teaching guide

by

Dr. Russell Binkley

Western Carolina University

Seven Stories Press

New York

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t e a c h i n g g u i d e

a different mirror for young people

This text has been adapted from the 529-page book (1993, 2008) by Ronald Takaki (1939–2009). Takaki’s scholarship focused on the racial and ethnic diversity of the United States and how those differences have both enriched and troubled the coun-try. After the introductory chapter, a rationale for challenging the “Master Narrative” of American history, the subsequent 15 chapters each center on specific groups; most are immigrants, although some (enslaved Africans) did not come of their own accord and others (native peoples) were already here.

The stories are of heartbreak, hardship, and against-the-odds perseverance in spite of class bias and economic hardship, rac-ism, discrimination, suspicion, cruelty, legal sanctions, and narrow definitions of who deserves to be called “American.”

Following the introductory chapter, each chapter (the final one, chapter 17, is more of an afterward) may be used as sepa-rate reading assignments of 17 to 25 pages each. This teacher’s guide follows a general pattern:

I. Chapter summaryII. Vocabulary III. Open-ended discussion questionsIV. Activities for small groups and individuals

V. Connections: films, readings, websites that can ex-tend the chapter content

VI. Questions for the teacher to considerFinally, the teacher’s guide closes with ideas that could be

used either for end-of-book response projects or for enrichment.

Preliminary ActivitiesAnticipatory:

1. Project an enlarged image of the front cover of A Different Mirror on a screen (or provide each student with a copy to examine). Allow two minutes for students to look close-ly at the cover and to take notes on what they see. (Later, this skill of deep observation will be developed further as we learn to analyze photographs as primary documents). Then, in small groups, have students compare notes, par-ticularly noticing what they might have seen that others did not observe. Provide these questions for discussion, noting that sharing will be expected later in the larger group. En-courage the observations to be detailed and ask students to take some risks in speculating about what they find.

2. The uncropped photograph can be seen at http://www.granger.com/results.asp?im-age=0115072&itemw=4&itemf=0002&item-step=1&itemx=34

Thinking About the Photograph (Japanese internment, Ansel Adams, 1943) on the Cover*

1. What do you see in the photograph?

*A thorough and teacher-friendly resource for the classroom analysis of primary documents (written, photographs, films, recordings, maps, material artifacts) is on the Library of Congress website at http://www.loc.gov/teachers/usingprimarysources/This site includes a wealth of teaching ideas, reproductions of primary sources, and forms for classroom analysis.

2. Describe the children in the photograph.3. Where do you think this photograph was taken?4. What can you say about the setting of the photograph?5. Who do you think took the photograph (and why)?

Thinking About the Title1. Explain what you think the title A Different Mirror

means.2. What is meant by “multicultural America”?

Speculating About the Reading Experience 1. Why do you think your teacher (or school) has chosen

this particular book for you to use?2. What do you think you might learn that you don’t al-

ready know after we have finished reading and study-ing this book?

3. If this is a history book, how do you think it will com-pare to other history textbooks you have used in school?

4. How have you felt about other history textbooks you have used in the past? Why?

5. If you were in charge of choosing history textbooks for students like you, how would they differ from the books you may have used previously?

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I N T R O D U C T I O N

MY STORY, OUR STORY

In his short introduction to the book, Ronald Takaki briefly out-lines his life. Raised in Hawaii (which was not yet a state), his father was a Japanese immigrant and his mother was Japanese American. His neighborhood was working class and multicul-tural. Young Ron would have been content to be a surfer, but his parents, who had not had much schooling, wanted a more respectable, educated future for their son.

An inspiring teacher motivated Ron to go to college far away in Ohio. It was 1957 and the campus was rather homogeneous. Peers kept asking him where he was from, assuming that he was not American because of his Asian heritage. When he mar-ried a white woman he had fallen in love with on campus, it took several years for her parents to accept their biracial union.

Ron earned a doctorate and went on to teach Ethnic Studies at universities and to author several books on this topic. His ex-tended family soon grew to include representatives from many races, nations, and ethnicities. He realized that this wide diver-sity within his own family was a true reflection of the history of the United States, its present patchwork of differences, and it foretold the future when “all Americans will be minorities.”

8 a different mirror teaching guide

Discussion Questions for Students1. Takaki writes that when he went to college in Ohio, oth-

ers thought he “did not look like an American.” What is an American? What does an American look like?

2. After four years of being upset that Ron married their white daughter, Takaki’s father-in-law, Mr. Rankin, be-gan to warm up. Mr. Rankin’s “racist attitudes were not frozen.” What does Takaki mean? Do you think racism can be “unfrozen”? How? Share your experiences.

ActivitiesPrint one copy of the “Identity wheel” for each student from http://www.library.wisc.edu/EDVRC/docs/public/pdfs/LI-Readings/Social%20Identities%20Wheel.pdf

This exercise asks participants to examine the various identi-ties they carry with them and then to create a visual model that assigns importance to each of these identities.

Teachers should first share how they see their own identi-ties before students begin the activity. After sharing the teach-er model, direct students to complete the handout “pie-chart” style, labeling each of their “master identities” and deciding, based on how they see their identities’ importance, what por-tion of 100% each identity takes.

Ask students to share their identity wheels in small groups (respecting students who choose not to share at all), then shar-ing and discussing with the larger group.

Ask: 1. What did you think about doing this activity?2. How did it feel to have to name your identities?3. Are there some identities people might choose not to

disclose?

my story, our story 9

4. Do our identities remain the same throughout our lives?

5. How did your identities differ from your peers?6. Why would some identities (like race or religion, for

instance) be more, or less important to different people?

Question for the TeacherWhat should we consider if we are teaching in an area where there appears to be minimal diversity?

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C H A P T E R O N E

WHY A DIFFERENT MIRROR?

Chapter Thesis The mirror that we have used to see American history has reflected only a partial picture, primarily accounts of the rich, white, powerful male. We need a different mirror, one that restores and reflects the whole im-age, the stories of all the different groups who shaped this nation.

Chapter SummaryTakaki relates an incident in which he once more had to prove he was really an “American.” A white taxi driver had compli-mented him on his spoken English and asked him where he was from. Because many chapters of American history had been lost, the cabdriver, as many Americans, did not realize that the United States had always been multicultural.

Takaki goes on to introduce the real, “more inclusive” his-tory he is about to tell: African, Asian, Irish, Jewish, Latino, Mexican, Muslim, and Native American stories.

In 1676, as they imported Africans to supply labor, Americans had to give up the dream of an all-white America. These Africans became the “central minority” and their struggle for freedom and equality is woven through the American story. Asians, too, arrived, but the Americans passed laws to limit their numbers.


The Irish followed, eventually overcoming nativist prejudice be-cause they could be seen as “white.” Jews fled European perse-cution to become new Americans, striving to overcome hostility to enter the mainstream. As their territory was annexed into the United States, Mexicans tried to participate in the life of the rel-atively new country. Other Spanish-speaking immigrants joined the multicultural experiment. More recently, a religious minori-ty, Muslims, sought a place at the table, but their assimilation was complicated by the backlash of some Americans after the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City.

Immigrants came to fulfill their dreams, but dominant groups tended to perceive the dream as theirs alone. All came to a land that had originally been home to native peoples; white settlers, seeking to control these original Americans, claimed their land, perpetrating the myth that they were savages, and thus, in the way of progress.

So, the American story has not been told fully. The “little people” have felt unworthy of telling it. Leaving people out of history is, to Takaki, like using a flawed mirror, unreliable be-cause it does not reflect the whole story, the telling of which empowers those who have been forgotten or silenced.

The chapter ends with brief excerpts of the songs of those nameless Asian, Irish, Mexican, and black laborers who built the transcontinental railroad in the 19th century, “one of the greatest achievements of American industry.”

Vocabularymulticultural colonizers narrativemigration immigrant diversitydemography ancestry minoritiesethnic segregation lynchingalien Protestant pogromanti-Semitism refugee

why a different mirror? 13

Discussion Questions1. Discuss the importance of tobacco in the development

of America.2. What did Walt Whitman mean when he called the

United States “a teeming nation of nations”?3. What does Takaki mean by the “Master Narrative”?4. In Oscar Handlin’s book, The Uprooted (1951), why do

you think he wrote as if the only immigrants who re-ally mattered were from Europe? What other histories need to be challenged?

5. On page 9, Takaki lists whom he will focus on in this book. Identify any groups that are still left out. Why are they missing?

6. At first, English plantation owners wanted the new world to be white, but in 1676, they began to import Africans to work for them. Prior to the arrival of en-slaved black Africans, how was “white” defined?

7. Who, besides African Americans, participated in the civil rights movement?

8. When did the first wave of Asian immigrants arrive in the New World? From where did they come?

9. Were the Irish always regarded as “white”?10. Historically, immigrants have been played against one

another. How has this strategy affected those involved?

Activities1. Play the YouTube clip, “What kind of Asian are you?”

This short film humorously illustrates Takaki’s point about his having to prove he is really American. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWynJkN5HbQ

2. How could we use this video to understand how some


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members of immigrant groups might feel about hav-ing their “Americanism” challenged?

3. Research the demographics (race, gender, ethnicity, family size, religious affiliations, etc.) for the town, city, or county where you live. Locate these statistics from 50 years ago. Demonstrate these visually. How have they changed? Reflect on how these changes have impacted your area. Follow up these findings by inter-viewing local residents about how they react to what you discovered.

4. Create an Immigration Timeline. What were the num-bers for each group of immigrants? Include various groups and the peaks of their immigration. Integrate the laws enacted for or against these immigrations.

5. Collect, share, and analyze a sample of songs and their lyrics about work stretching from the time of the first Americans up to the present day. What do these songs have in common? How do they differ? How, if at all, have they influenced the songs that followed?

Primary Document AnalysisPrint: Dutch Slave Ship Arrives in Virginia Retrieved from http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-pho-to/engraving-shows-the-arrival-of-a-dutch-slave-ship-with-a-news-photo/3190638

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C H A P T E R T W O

REMOVING THE “SAVAGES”

Chapter ThesisFrom the time the first Europeans (Vikings) set foot on the North American continent, through Columbus and to the colonizing En-glish, the original inhabitants, Native Americans were regarded as savages to be subdued or exterminated by the “civilized” invaders. But who was really uncivilized?

Chapter SummaryTakaki names the first violent interaction between whites and Native Americans when Vikings landed in Eastern Canada and killed the people they found, beginning a long history of attacks and retaliations. It was another 500 years before Columbus landed, and then other Europeans followed.

Having colonized Ireland and treated its people as savage pagans to be moved onto reservations, England soon brought this concept of a binary world to North America, remarking that the Native Americans were too much like the “wild Irish.” The relationships were uneasy ones. In Jamestown, poorly pre-pared colonists faced starvation and sometimes Indians res-cued them. Tobacco growers saw potential profit and so wanted more land to cultivate. When native peoples resisted the taking


of their land, the brutality escalated. The colonists had claimed they wanted to “civilize” and “convert” and “educate” the orig-inal inhabitants, but increasingly they acted to destroy them.

In New England, Native American numbers had already been decimated by new diseases brought by the settlers, who attributed these mass deaths to God’s will. They regarded the Native Americans as little more than wild animals, who had no need of land or homes. Both the Pequot War and King Philip’s War dented the colonists’ holds, so England sent its army to secure the territory to which it felt entitled. And God, too, they claimed, wanted a Christian triumph over the demonic Indi-ans. However, some surviving narratives by whites who had been Indian captives drew a more complex picture that went beyond primitive savagery, one of people with humanity and compassion.

The inevitable proceeded. White towns grew larger and pros-pered. Indian territory shrank and Indians suffered with dis-ease and from lack of access to the nature that had sustained them. The colonists won independence from England. Thomas Jefferson revealed his animosity: Indians must be civilized or wiped out. Being civilized meant giving up their culture: reli-gion, language, and ways of life that defined them. The confor-mity that Jefferson required would give them little choice but to assimilate, accrue debt, and give up their land.

Vocabularyfrontier pagan reservationcuriosities barbarous treacherousancestral cannibalism profitableexport massacre stereotype

removing the “savages” 17

Discussion Questions1. What was the first (recorded) encounter between

whites and Native Americans? What was the result?2. What was the “accident of history”?3. Speculate: what would have happened if the earliest ex-

plorers to reach North America had not stayed?4. How did the way the English treated the Irish become

a model for how they would later relate to the Native Americans?

5. How did Columbus regard the Native Americans he encountered?

6. Discuss examples of early English settlers’ attitudes to-ward the Native Americans.

7. How would you react if you were ordered to abandon your culture?

8. Describe Powhatan civilization when the first English settlers arrived.

9. Discuss the relationship between the Jamestown set-tlers and the Powhatans.

10. Why do you think the English had come to Jamestown so poorly prepared to survive?

11. What role did tobacco play in the Virginia settlers’ lives?12. Describe the war against the Powhatans.13. Describe New England’s Indian settlements in the ear-

ly years of English colonists.14. At first, it seemed very easy for the English to take over

Indian land in New England. Why?15. What role did the New England settlers think God

played in their occupation of the land?16. How did New England settlers justify taking over In-

dian land?


17. What was King Philip’s War?18. Who was Mary Rowlandson? How did her account of

her kidnapping challenge stereotypes of Native Amer-icans?

19. Why did White success in North America seem to mean Native American poverty?

20. Discuss Thomas Jefferson’s conflicting views of Native Americans.

21. Do you see this chapter as a documentation of progress or one of change? Why?

22. White captives of Native Americans often wrote about their experiences after they were released. How do you think their identities (points of view) affected how they wrote about their experiences?

Activities 1. Examine a projected image of what some believe to be

the earliest (1434 AD) world map, which shows North America, the Vinland Map. Research whether experts agree if it is genuine or not. Have students try to label the landforms correctly.

http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/pubaf/pr/pho-tos/2002/vinland.jpg

2. Some of the Native American nations that Takaki lists throughout this text include: Beothuk, Abenaki, Pow-hatan, Wampanoa, Pequot, Narragansett, Mohegan, Seneca, Delaware, Shawnee, Choctaw, Creek, Sioux, Pawnee, Susquehanna, Cherokee, and Kaskaskia. Stu-dents will choose one of these tribes (or one of many others listed at http://www.native-languages.org/origi-nal.htm). Search for maps that show the territory of the

removing the “savages” 19

tribe they have chosen before white settlement. What was their population? How has the size (and location) of that territory changed since then? What is that tribe’s current population?

Primary Document Analysis Have students read and analyze portions of the Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mary Rowlandson. Retrieved from http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/rownarr.html.

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C H A P T E R T H R E E

THE HIDDEN ORIGINS OF SLAVERY

Chapter Thesis In 1619 Virginia, colonists soon understood that they could make a good living growing tobacco, but indentured servants they had im-ported would work for them for only a few years; they needed work-ers for the long term. When both white and black African workers organized to protect their interest, the elite panicked and instigated slavery of Africans. Now working class and poor whites had someone lower on the social ladder than they were and the ruling class had a steady supply of exploitable labor.

Chapter SummaryThe tobacco industry in Virginia grew rapidly as European demand escalated. Because indentured servants only stayed on the job until their passage and expenses were repaid, more workers were need-ed to grow, harvest, and process the plant. In the Caribbean, black Africans had been imported to work in the colonies; these enslaved Africans had become the majority of the population. Virginia colo-nists resisted becoming a white minority, but they needed laborers.

After 1670, the number of imported African workers in-creased. The reason for this change was that indentured ser-vants had begun to rebel against the mistreatment of the ruling


class. In 1676, Nathaniel Bacon, a planter, organized a militia for protection against Native Americans. The elite were un-easy with an armed underclass and Governor Berkeley charged Bacon with treason. Bacon then led his men, both white and black, to Jamestown. They burned it to the ground.

The upper class was terrified at their vulnerability to a united underclass. They began to rely more and more on enslaved Af-ricans. Their strategy was to separate and alienate slaves from lower class whites by initiating laws that kept black workers on the bottom. Among other restrictions, blacks could not be armed or move about freely.

A hundred years later, Thomas Jefferson recognized slav-ery’s profoundly immoral nature. Yet, he retained slaves in his own estate. He believed that slavery had to end, but that it was not feasible for freed blacks to live among those who had once owned them. Jefferson wanted to send the former slaves to a place such as Haiti, a new black republic. Jefferson saw the dilemma of slavery; it was as if the nation had a wolf by its ears, unable to hold it, yet afraid to let it go.

Vocabularyindentured servant exploitation interracial servitude class war eliteunderclass rebellion rabblemilitia squadron insurrectionabolition inferior prejudice

Discussion Questions1. Compare and contrast indentured servitude with slavery.2. What were the differences between Barbados’s and

Virginia’s use of slaves? Why did Virginia resist becom-ing like Barbados?

the hidden origins of slavery 23

3. At first, there were both white and black indentured servants. How, if at all, were they treated differently?

4. What was Bacon’s Rebellion? Why were landowners so threatened by it?

5. If you wanted to make sure that slaves stayed on the lower rungs of society, what laws would you create and enact?

6. Explain Jefferson’s “the ears of the wolf” metaphor.7. How do you explain the profound paradox of how Jef-

ferson lived and what he thought about slavery?

Activities:1. Research today’s tobacco growing industry. Compare it

to the tobacco industry of the early colonies in the eigh-teenth century.

2. Graph the change in black population in Virginia from 1619 to the time of the American Civil War.

3. Research the tobacco plant, its discovery, history, size, properties, life cycle, cultivation, and how it has been modified.

4. Research the life of Nathaniel Bacon. Create a mono-logue that reveals how he came to rebel against the rul-ing class. Find props and appropriate dress and perform live or make a video of this monologue for the class.

5. Trace Bacon’s rebellion on a period map of Virginia.6. Thomas Jefferson thought that freed slaves should be

sent away to somewhere such as the island nation of Haiti. Why would he choose that location? What was unique about that nation’s history?

7. Read excerpts from the Olaudah Equiano’s autobiogra-phy. Trace his journey on maps from where he said he


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originated in West Africa to where he landed, was sold, and where he went as a free man. Research the Mid-dle Passage. How did Equiano learn to read and write? How did he become free?

Primary Document Analysis There are two possible images to analyze around Bacon’s rebel-lion, both to be found on Getty images http://www.gettyimag-es.com/

Tobacco label: El Alabama fabrica de tabacos de las mejores vegas de la vuelta abajo

Retrieved from http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3g01996/

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C H A P T E R F O U R

THE ROAD TO THE RESERVATION

Chapter Thesis Message to Native Americans: Adapt or face extermination. Even before the time of Thomas Jefferson, the federal government claimed to want to help native peoples to survive by accepting the new reality of white European takeover, but the policies it initiated only pushed native people further west, moved them to less desirable land, and decimated their population. The building of the transcontinental carried still more white settlers across the Great Plains and the world the Native Americans had known soon disappeared.

Chapter SummaryPresident Jefferson advised Andrew Jackson to encourage Na-tive Americans to abandon the wilderness and become farm-ers, but even after they had become farmers, Jackson, by then a noted ruthless Indian-fighter, eventually took their land, ben-efiting as a speculator. Jackson refused to intervene as Georgia and Mississippi removed Indians and allowed whites to settle on their land.

In 1830, treaties, soon broken, coerced the Choctaw of Mis-sissippi to abandon their farms to trek west across the Missis-sippi River. Eight years later, the Cherokee people were forced


from their homeland; their arduous journey, on foot and in winter, killed one-fourth of their population.

Railroads were big business. They wanted to expand their territory and bring in new markets. As they pushed west, native tribes resisted, but they were no match for the large numbers of white settlers, cultivating what had been wild land, hunting the once plentiful buffalo to near extinction, and fencing in the once boundless prairie.

Vocabularyspeculator ratified exterminated reservation

Discussion Questions1. How do you think a white man in Tennessee in 1835

would regard Andrew Jackson? What do you think a Choctaw or a Cherokee person at the same time would say about him?

2. Do you think Andrew Jackson was a war criminal?3. Do you think the US government intentionally misled

the Indians? Why?4. What would American life be like now if the US gov-

ernment had different policies toward native peoples?5. How could the US government get away with breaking

its treaties with native peoples?6. How did the railroad impact Native Americans?7. How did native people react to what was happening to

them? In what ways did they resist?

Activities:1. Research: Identify various treaties between native peo-

ples and the United States.

the road to the reservation 27

2. What were these treaties called? Why were they enact-ed? What did they promise? How long were they in ef-fect? How, if at all, were they broken?

3. Research: Identify cotton-growing areas on a map from the 1800s. How much of this land came from native peoples?

4. Research: Who was Alexis de Tocqueville? Describe his other experiences with Native Americans.

5. Research: Takaki mentions that the Cherokees had a newspaper in the 1830s. This was unusual. How did this newspaper come about? Did other tribes have a written language?

6. Find examples of this early newspaper.7. Research: Trace the Trail of Tears on a map. Find

first-person accounts of the journey. Using transcripts, write several monologues of the travelers for students to present in a dramatic way.

8. Research: Show the growth of the railroad on a map of the United States and its territory circa 1800 to 1890.

9. Research: Look into missionary schools for Indians. Where were some of these schools located? Who ran them? Who went to them? What were these experiences like for native children? Are any of these schools still operating today?

Primary Document Analysis Print: The Trail of Tears (Cherokee removal)

Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h1567b.html

Print: Slaughter of the plains buffalo: Retrieved from http://www.corbisimages.com/stock-photo/


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rights-managed/IH020808/men-shooting-buffalo-from-a-moving-train

5 more images of buffalo’s wholesale killing:Retrieved from http://www.retronaut.com/?modalid=17329

Newspaper: front page Cherokee Phoenix (1828)Retrieved from http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/imag-

es/at0092a_6s.jpg

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C H A P T E R F I V E

LIFE IN SLAVERY

Chapter Thesis Blacks faced harsh lives in both the South as slaves and in the North as free people. African Americans resisted oppression by advocating violence, pursuing education, or fighting on the Union side in the American Civil War. Yet, the powerful would not give up their po-sitions; they looked for ways to be sure that blacks would remain on the bottom of society; thus, how African Americans lived after slav-ery was little different from how they had lived before emancipation.

Chapter SummaryAlthough Native Americans faced racism and discrimination, in most cases, they were at least able to limit their interactions with white people. But, in contrast, African Americans were forced to confront social inequality constantly because they had to live and work among their oppressors. Blacks in the north, though free, still lived with laws and attitudes that limited their ability to thrive and care for their families. If they were enslaved to white southerners, their lives were even more wretched.

It is important to recognize how often these oppressed Americans seized agency and looked for ways to resist being victims: David Walker called for violence in response to slav-


ery; Nat Turner led an uprising that killed sixty whites; Freder-ick Douglass learned to read and became an intellectual force against slavery; African American men joined the Union Army to defeat the Confederacy. Yet, parallel with Reconstruction, harsh laws were created to limit the freedom of emancipated black people, who faced constant economic oppression and ter-roristic violence.

Vocabularyghetto pretense menialabolished discrimination segregationplantation psychological illiterate minstrel barbarian devastatingpunitive sharecropper Reconstructionlynching coffle Emancipation Proclamation

Discussion Questions1. In what ways did enslaved African Americans resist

slavery? 2. How do you resist/respond when you feel your own

freedom is threatened?3. What was “hiring out”? How did it weaken the system

of slavery?4. Why was education of slaves forbidden?5. Could education also be seen as dangerous today?

Where and why?6. Argue for and against reparations to descendants of

slaves.7. If you had been a slave, would you have tried to escape

to freedom? What were the risks?8. Would you have helped an escaping slave?

life in slavery 31

Activities1. Research the history of Little Black Sambo. This book

was once very popular. Why is it no longer considered appropriate?

2. Research: What were minstrel shows? Who performed in them? Who did they entertain? How did they rein-force the racist attitudes of the day?

3. Research: Who was Nat Turner? What were the details of his rebellion? Were there any other slaves who led violent acts against their owners?

4. Research: What were “slavebreakers”? What did they do?

5. Research: Describe the relationship between Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.

6. Research: At one time, freed slaves were to be repaid with “forty acres and a mule.” What was the value of such a grant at that time (depending on the location of the land)?

7. If a family got these 40 acres in 1865, speculate on what this property would be worth today. How might family wealth have been affected by this earlier acquisition?

8. Research: What is “scrip”? How did the use of scrip reinforce the sharecropping system?

9. Research: What was the Underground Railroad? How close did it come to where you or your family members live? Show the location(s) on maps.

10. Research: Who was Jim Crow?


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Primary Document Analysis

Caution and care are urged here, as many of the resources below are quite racist and potentially offensive. It would be ex-pedient to moderate a class discussion about why such artifacts

are preserved and whether (and how) we should use them. Audio: Michael Ealy reads J.W. Loguen, Letter to Mrs. Sarah Logue (March 28, 1860). Introduced by Dave Zirin

Retrieved from http://www.loc.gov/search/?q=slave+narra-tive+recordings

Minstrel show & Jim Crow ephemera (many images)Retrieved from http://www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?q=min-

strels%20performances&sg=true and http://www.flickr.com/photos/vintagaposters/8109838250/in/set-72157631821920314

Music: Jim Crow Blues, performed by Leadbelly (Huddie Led-better)

Retrieved from http://grooveshark.com/#!/search/song?q=Lead-belly+Jim+Crow+Blues

Black recruitment poster for Union Army (Many recruiting posters and a lesson plan)

Retrieved from http://www.ettc.net/tah/LessonPlan_Docu-ments/Recruiting%20Civil%20War%20Soldiers--The%20Power%20of%20the%20Poster.pdf

Ebook: Little Black SamboRetrieved from http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17824/17824-

h/17824-h.htm

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C H A P T E R S I X

THE FLIGHT FROM IRELAND

Chapter ThesisIrish immigration to the United States began in the early nine-teenth century. Native Americans had already been consigned to reservations, and recently freed African Americans were kept down by Jim Crow laws and widespread prejudice. The Irish fled famine and British oppression, but they received a cold reception in the US. They helped to build the rapidly industrializing land’s infrastruc-ture, while they were also pitted against other new arrivals and the already downtrodden black workers. It was a difficult assimilation.

Chapter SummaryIn the early 1800s, a million-plus Irish immigrants left a land they felt had been taken from them by English landlords. Those who stayed tried to survive as migrant farmers, but their rented plots of potato crops had been struck by a widespread blight that meant starvation for many families. Up to two million more Irish immi-grated before the twentieth century. They sought jobs and many worked on building roads, canals, and railroads. They felt dispos-able because so many died or were injured in dangerous work.

Factory owners undermined their efforts to unionize by bringing in Chinese workers willing to work for less. Like Afri-


can Americans, Indians, and Mexicans, the Irish were reviled as “inferior.” Trying to rise above other workers, the Irish used racism against black workers to promote themselves as white. This hostility came to a head during the Civil War when the Irish in New York rioted against black citizens who they believe were bent on stealing their jobs.

In 1830, blacks held most domestic positions. The Irish in-flux, which consisted of more than half women, however, shift-ed this balance because many unmarried women got house-hold jobs. They emigrated because their cottage industries no longer had viable markets. But life in domestic service was isolated, so many women took jobs in textile factories. When they had their own families, their daughters were less likely to continue in the work of their mothers. Instead, they became nurses, secretaries, and teachers.

Unlike Chinese and African Americans, the Irish were even-tually regarded as White. They used the franchise to get oth-er Irish into positions of power and they, in turn, hired Irish firms. They founded organizations to help other Irish to con-nect to useful influences.

Vocabularyoppressors tenant tyranny blightexploited negotiate inferior prejudiceassimilate dowry domesticwhite-collar job naturalized suffragemanufacturer prosperity

Discussion Questions1. Why were so many women among the wave of Irish

immigrants in the early nineteenth century?2. What is the difference between emigration and immigration?

the flight from ireland 35

3. What was life like in Ireland for the Irish under British control?

4. Why did the Irish immigrants want to unionize their workers?

5. What are “scabs”? How did they impact the Irish unions?

6. Explain “divide and conquer” as it applies to Irish, Af-rican Americans, and Chinese workers.

Activities:1. Develop an immigration timeline for the United States,

beginning with the first group that came to Jamestown in 1619. Show the changing numbers of immigrants over the years.

2. There is a saying, “An Irishman is buried under every tie” about the building of the American railroads. Find other sayings about American immigrants; explain their meanings and put them into context.

3. Research the history of the labor union, the Knights of Saint Crispin. How and where was it begun? What did it do for the workers? Who could become a member? Is it still in existence? If not, why?

4. What labor unions are still active today? How many Americans are members of labor unions? What prob-lems do these unions face?

5. Who was Mother Jones? How did she become the most dangerous woman in America? What causes was she involved with?

6. Research child labor in America. In what industries were children employed?

7. Research: What is the origin of the term “scab”?


37

Primary Document Analysis Photographs: children at work, by Lewis Hine.

Retrieved from http://www.loc.gov/search/?q=lewis+hine&-fa=site%3Apictures&st=gallery

(See, especially, “Katie, 13 years, and Angelina Javella, 11 years”)Retrieved from http://lcweb2.loc.gov/service/pnp/ncl-

c/04100/04129v.jpg

Photographs: Mother JonesRetrieved from http://www.loc.gov/search/?q=mother+-

jones&st=gallery

Song Lyrics: Lament of the Irish ImmigrantRetrieved from http://www.loc.gov/resource/amss.as107440

37

C H A P T E R S E V E N

THE WAR AGAINST MEXICO

Chapter ThesisSome Mexicans became Americans without changing where they lived. As the US empire expanded through war and settlement, it took in the territory. Texas and a good part of the southwest, in-cluding California, had actually been part of Mexico. The US then enacted policies to ensure white dominance.

Chapter SummaryThe American empire was not satisfied with controlling only territory east of the Mississippi River. One of the first territories it wanted next was Tejas, or Texas. Slaveholders wanted more cotton-growing land and Texas seemed perfect for that, but it was Mexican territory and slavery was illegal there. Americans had been migrating to Texas and they outnumbered the native Mexicans. When Mexico outlawed more immigration, Stephen Austin called for white citizens to bring their guns to “Ameri-canize” the territory.

The battle of the Alamo resulted in Mexican victory, but ral-lied the Americans to seek revenge. They killed 630 Mexican soldiers and declared Texas to be an independent nation. In 1845, it became a US state, but there was a dispute over wheth-


er its southern border was the Rio Grande or Nueces Rivers, a distance of 150 miles. After a skirmish, President Polk declared war on Mexico; the hostilities were an excuse to also acquire Californian territories.

California was desirable for several reasons: it produced cattle hides for leather, and it had ocean access, good for ports and trade with Asia. While a small group of armed rebels declared California independent from Mexico with little violence, the war in the Southwest was brutal. American troops were accused of rape, robbery, and murder of Mexican citizens. In 1848, Mexico accepted $15 million from the US for these territories. Mexicans were now foreigners in the land that had once been their home.

Laws were soon enacted to make sure Mexicans and blacks fell to the bottom and stayed there. Foreign miners had to pay a separate tax. Voting rights were limited. Land titles held by Mexicans were contested. Anglo squatters claimed Mexican land. Anglos got better rates on loans so they were able to main-tain their farms during droughts and to buy the land forfeited by Mexicans who could not afford the upkeep.

Increasingly, these original settlers went from landowning to working for White Americans in agriculture and railroad construction, but were often used to do the menial and most dangerous work for lower pay than their Anglo counterparts. Yet the Mexican farm workers found solidarity with Japanese workers, forming the Japanese-Mexican Labor Association (JMLA) in 1903. They went on strike together. They petitioned to join the more powerful American Federation of Labor (AFL), but were turned down by a racist leadership who objected to the inclusion of Japanese or Chinese members. But the Mex-ican workers kept on organizing for more just working lives, confounding the stereotype of docility and passivity.

the war against mexico 39

Vocabularyexpansion conflagration civilizedmongrel recourse skirmishAnglos naturalized commerceatrocities descendant suffragedominated squatter dwindlingvaquero irrigation ethnic solidarity mutualista

Discussion Questions1. Why was the US so eager to get its hands on Mexican

territory?2. What did the Mexican government do to try to keep

Americans from taking over Texas?3. What happened at the Alamo?4. Where do you think the “real” border between Mexico

and Texas was?5. What does Takaki identify as the real reason behind Pres-

ident Polk’s decision to go to war with Mexico in 1846?6. Why did the US want to control California?7. What was U. S. Grant’s perspective on the US’s at-

tempt to take the Southwest from Mexico?8. What did the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo mean for

the Mexicans who were now inside the US?9. How did the California legislature impact Mexican miners?10. What did Texas do to limit Mexicans’ political power?11. How did Anglos take over the ownership of Mexican land?12. After so many Mexicans lost their land, how did they

make their livings?13. How do you respond to what Mowry said about Mexi-

cans: “faithful, good servants . . . they have been peons


41

for generations. They will remain so, as it is their nat-ural condition”?

14. How did Mexicans use labor unions to improve their working lives?

Activities1. Research: Compare how history textbooks that are used

in Mexico present the loss of the Southwest territories with how American textbooks cover that topic. You may want to look specifically at the battle of the Alamo.

2. Look at maps. Illustrate Mexican territory before the war of 1846 and after.

3. Research: Were Americans united in their support of the war with Mexico? What evidence do you find to support your answer?

Primary Document Analysis Painting: Frederick Remington, A Vaquero, 1881-1901

Retrieved from http://www.paintingmania.com/vaque-ro-181_17804.html

Frederick Remington: A Mexican Vaquero 1890Retrieved from http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/art-

work/97907Cartoon: The patriots getting their beans

Retrieved from http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3a12360/

Cartoon: Manifest destiny and expansion in the AmericasRetrieved from http://www.classroomelectric.org/volume1/

gruesz/cartoon.htm

41

C H A P T E R E I G H T

FROM CHINA TO GOLD MOUNTAIN

Chapter ThesisIn 1848, the United States needed workers to build the transcon-tinental railroad and to help farm its new acquisition, California. Allowing Chinese workers who were escaping a chaotic homeland to come into the US solved the problem for the railroads, but their continued presence rankled white workers, who thought they were losing jobs to the immigrants. Racism reared its head and brought misery and loneliness to the Chinese immigrants: US law forbade them to send for their families.

Chapter SummaryCalifornia’s statehood opened up new markets with Asia. It also meant Chinese immigrants came, leaving their home-land’s problems for opportunity in America. They found jobs in agriculture and in completing the transcontinental railroad. The gold rush of 1849 also brought more Chinese willing to take risks to earn a fortune.

Thousands of Chinese came, not only to California, but also to all parts of the United States. They were not white, so the Naturalization Act of 1790 forbade them from becoming citi-zens. Some white Americans resented their presence, so Cal-


ifornia passed a miners’ tax of $3.00 a month, aimed at those who could not become citizens, the Chinese. Two-thirds of the Chinese worked as gold prospectors and the state collected a sizable tax.

When the gold rush waned, the railroad, especially the Cen-tral Pacific, needed workers. Chinese immigrants, doing dan-gerous jobs in harsh weather, were crucial to its completion. White laborers resented the Chinese because they would work for lower wages. When the Chinese went on strike for more money, they were cut off from food supplies and soon gave up their fight. After the tracks were laid, the workers headed to San Francisco and to farmlands, because many Chinese had come from farms in their home country.

White resentment led many Chinese immigrants to aban-don labor and open their own businesses, especially laundries. Laundry was usually seen as “woman’s work” in China, but few women had been allowed to come. Opportunities were limited. Laws were enacted so that America could retain its whiteness and so people of color, African Americans, Native Americans, and Chinese would become a permanent underclass of foreign laborers. One such law was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Every concession for civil rights that the American government granted was hard won. Without American birth certificates, few rights were theirs.

Not many women had come from China, chiefly because it was against tradition. Gradually, though, as conditions im-proved, Chinese women began to join the men, who continued to outnumber the women. The growing families established “Chinatowns” in the cities. After the 1906 earthquake devastat-ed San Francisco and most public records had been burned or lost, the immigrants took this as an opportunity to claim they

from china to gold mountain 43

had been born in America. No one could disprove this and so a new wave of immigrants began to come through Angel Island. This influx included “paper sons,” Chinese men who averred they had parents in the United States.

Vocabulary:prospector tenant farmer hostilityexclusion opium servitudetongs fongs clancatastrophe paper son marginal man

Discussion Questions1. How did the annexation of California influence the im-

migration of Chinese workers?2. Why did so many Chinese begin to migrate to America

in 1849?3. Why did the US pass a Naturalization Act in 1790?4. Why was a miner’s tax passed in California in 1872?5. How, once more, do we see an example of how those in

power “divide and conquer” to control workers (in this case, the Chinese)?

6. What were the industries in San Francisco that em-ployed the Chinese?

7. Why do you think the Chinese were successful farmers in California?

8. Why did so many Chinese men get involved in the laundry business?

9. Takaki writes (page 152): This idea was rooted in the rac-ist notion that “American” meant “white.” Discuss wheth-er this is still a “truism,” being sure to back up your arguments.

10. Compare how some white workers resented Chinese


laborers and how Native Americans and African Amer-icans may have also been regarded.

11. What laws did California enact to be sure that the Chi-nese would stay on the bottom socially?

12. What did the 1870 Civil Rights Act attempt to do for people of color?

13. For many years, there were very few women among the Chinese immigrants. Why?

14. Describe the lives of immigrant Chinese men in San Francisco.

15. Why were Chinese laborers discouraged from immi-grating, yet Chinese merchants were allowed to immi-grate?

16. What natural disaster in 1906 changed the fortunes of Chinese immigrants in San Francisco? In what ways?

17. Why were some Chinese sons allowed to come to America?

18. What were some things that “paper sons” did to try to get into the United States?

Activities1. Research: Takaki writes that in China in the 1860s, a la-

borer could earn three to five dollars a month, while on California rail construction, he could earn thirty dollars a month. What was the cost of living like in California at that time? What would thirty dollars buy?

2. On a map of the United States, show the concentra-tions of Chinese immigrants in 1870.

3. Examine a timeline of racism: pinpoint the incidents of discrimination against the Chinese in particular; investigate three of these to report to the class. (Anti-

from china to gold mountain 45

Chinese persecution retrieved from http://www.zak-keith.com/articles,blogs,forums/anti-Chinese-persecu-tion-in-the-USA-history-timeline.htm)

4. Research: By 1870, five million dollars had been col-lected from Chinese workers in California as the min-er’s tax. What would that be worth today?

5. Trace the Chinese and Chinese American population demographics in San Francisco from 1860 to the pres-ent.

6. Many large US cities (New York, San Francisco, and Chicago) have Chinatowns. Research what other cities have Chinatowns; choose one and trace its history.

7. Research the religious lives of Chinese immigrants in California. What faith(s) did they follow? How like-ly were they to bring their religious faiths from their homelands or convert to the faiths of their new homes?

8. Research: Compare Angel Island on the west coast to Ellis Island on the east coast.

Primary Document AnalysisCartoon: The great fear of the period that Uncle Sam may be swallowed by foreigners: The problem solved

Retrieved from http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/pga.03047/

Film: Scenes of San Francisco (1906)Retrieved from http://www.loc.gov/item/00694427

Print: Chinese Immigrants at the San Francisco Customs House (1877)

Retrieved from http://lcweb2.loc.gov/service/pnp/cph/3b30000/3b39000/3b39800/3b39848r.jpg

Print: Chinese and European workers building the transconti-


47

nental railroad (1869)Photograph: Chinese Americans in a tenement in Chinatown (1890)Print: Chinese workers on railroad

Retrieved from http://www.allposters.com/-sp/Immigrant-Workers-Digging-Out-a-Snowbound-Union-Pacific-Train-Near-Ogden-Utah-1870s-Posters_i4237926_.htm

Oral histories (and other resources) from Angel IslandRetrieved from http://www.angel-island.com/intro.html

47

C H A P T E R N I N E

DEALING WITH THE INDIANS

Chapter ThesisAs the American nation swept west to claim the land to the Pacif-ic, the frontier was now conquered. Nature and distance had been subdued, but the native peoples (Indians) were still in the way, al-though this problem, too, could be solved, if not entirely with vio-lence and extermination, then through law.

Chapter SummaryFrederick Jackson Turner posited that conquering the frontier had made Americans “strong and self-reliant.” This exceptionalism re-affirmed the view that the United States was primarily a European and white nation. The non-whites, Native Americans, were to be either wiped out or moved out of sight onto reservations.

A series of events marked the close of the frontier. In 1868, George Custer led an attack on the Cheyenne on the Washita River in Oklahoma; the odds were against the Indians. But eight years lat-er, the tables were turned as Custer met Chief Crazy Horse at Little Big Horn River in Montana. He and his men were utterly defeated.

In 1889 in Nevada, an Indian prophet, Wovoka, claimed that if Indians began a fervent “Ghost Dance,” Indians who had been wiped out would return to life and the game they once


hunted would be “thick everywhere.” The message resonated with the Sioux and culminated with the US Cavalry slaughter-ing the outnumbered warriors and also women and children. This was the Massacre at Wounded Knee.

How, other than using warfare, could these native peoples be contained? Francis A. Walker, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, thought that technology and commerce would surely act as a “civilizing force,” but that the only way to “save” the Indians was to move them to one or two large reservations where they could adopt white ways—working, learning industrial skills, going to school—by doing as they were told.

The Dawes Act of 1887 proposed another solution. Indians would become property owners and US citizens. The president could award land to families and any leftover plots could be sold to white settlers. The communal tribal system, it was claimed, led to “savage habits and laziness.” The end result of the awards, it was hoped, meant larger land holdings for white men. Rail-roads also benefited greatly as more rights-of-way were granted.

By 1891, one-seventh of Indian land had passed into white hands. In 1902, congress accelerated that shift; when an Indian landowner died, his heirs were not entitled to the land. They would have to buy it at open auction. The US Supreme Court upheld that law; by 1933, Indians had lost 60 percent of the land they had owned in 1887.

By 1934, John Collier, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, re-placed the allotment program with the Indian Reorganization Act. Collier felt that the communal lives of Native Americans should be respected. Collier wanted to use federal monies so the tribes could buy land and govern themselves. 71 percent of the 245 tribes voted to accept reorganization.

One tribe that declined the offer was the Navajo. They felt that white people had no right to tell Indians what to do. These

dealing with the indians 49

long-term livestock herders had lost their orchards and cattle to Kit Carson and his army. The government replaced the live-stock with sheep. Now the Navajo were being told that they kept too many sheep, which were causing erosion and silting the Colorado River. But the Navajo knew that these cycles hap-pened now and then, and once again they had to comply with an ill-advised government program.

Vocabularyreservation commerce communalassimilate allotments self-reliantguardian hydroelectric social engineering

Discussion Questions1. Explain Turner’s thesis on the American Frontier.

What were the implications?2. What was the Ghost Dance? Why would Native Ameri-

cans at that time believe this?3. What happened at Wounded Knee?4. Describe the Massacre at Washita River.5. Who was Francis A. Walker? Explain his vision for a

reservation system.6. Who was Henry Dawes? What was his criticism of res-

ervations?7. What was the Dawes Act of 1887? How did it differ

from Walker’s policy?8. Who would benefit from the Dawes Act?9. According to Congress (in 1902) what was to become

of land owned by an Indian when the owner died? What were the eventual results of that law?

10. How did Lone Wolf dispute the seizure of Indian lands? What was the response of the US Supreme Court?


51

11. Explain Collier’s Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. Why did Collier think that the communal life of Indi-ans was worth protecting?

12. Why did the Navajos reject Collier’s reorganization plan?13. Who was Kit Carson?14. What was the Long Walk?15. Why did Collier claim that the Navajo needed to reduce

the number of their sheep? What was the Navajo’s re-action? Who was right?

16. Why do you think Collier perceived the Navajos as “anxious and hostile”?

Activities1. Research the life of one of these Native American lead-

ers: Sitting Bull, Big Foot, Black Kettle, Wovoka, Crazy Horse, Lone Wolf.

2. Research the history of scalping. 3. Research: On a map of North America, show the shift-

ing sizes and locations of the following Indian territo-ries: Navajo, Cheyenne, Lakota, Paiute.

4. Research: on a map, show the location and length of the Long Walk.

Primary Document Analysis Photographs: Navajo sheep herding images (Michael Benanav)

Retrieved from http://mbenanav.photoshelter.com/gallery/Navajo-Sheep-Herding/G0000RcfeGR14n80

Print: General Custer’s Death StruggleRetrieved from http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/pga.04166/

Photograph: US troops surrounding the Indians on Wounded Knee battlefield

Retrieved from http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3c33722/

51

C H A P T E R T E N

THE JAPANESE AND “MONEY TREES”

Chapter ThesisJapanese immigrants, wanting to escape high taxation and limit-ed land, came to Hawaii and the US mainland where they heard “money grew on trees.” They found hard work, exploitation, and prejudice on the Hawaiian plantations. Here they learned to unite with other immigrants to gain dignity. Life on the mainland was not much easier. They brought California farmland to life, but even in their second generation, they had to prove they were worthy to be called “American.”

Chapter SummaryJapan saw China being colonized in the nineteenth century and to avoid that fate, it strengthened its central government. This resulted in high taxes and loss of land. Hundreds of thou-sands of Japanese emigrated to Hawaii and the US mainland.

Unlike the Chinese, equal numbers of Japanese men and women emigrated. In Japan, women had less traditional sta-tus; they were educated and well represented in the labor force. Many women came as “picture brides,” following exchanged photographs into arranged marriages.

In the Kingdom of Hawaii, US sugar plantations system-


atically imported a diverse workforce. Their strategy was that different nationalities would be easier to manage, less likely to unite against management. There would be a hierarchy: white supervisors would be above field workers of color.

Plantation life was harsh. Fieldwork, done by both women and men, was grueling. But the Japanese workers did advocate for themselves, organizing into “blood unions.” They went on strike; the Portuguese workers had been paid $22.50 a month while the Japanese got $18 a month. The planters tried import-ing other nationalities to break the strike. The Japanese began to realize that unity across all workers was needed.

The planters responded with the familiar tactic of “divide and control,” and the strikers suffered greatly, but eventually won significant wage increases.

The plantation workers separated into ethnic communities, but they needed each other. Because they spoke different lan-guages, a common tongue, Pidgin English, developed. This language was a simple English made up of elements of Ha-waiian, Japanese, Portuguese, and Chinese. The immigrants began to see themselves as permanent residents.

Other Japanese had settled on the mainland. In California, they helped to transform the Sacramento and Imperial Val-leys were into productive and intensively cultivated farmland. Confronting white racism, the immigrants became successful members of their communities. Yet, race-based limits were en-acted; non-white immigration was halted in 1924.

Issei (Japanese-born) immigrants could not become citizens or buy land. Their children, Nisei, born in America, were citi-zens. Nisei, too, faced discrimination. Even with good educa-tion, it was hard to find jobs. Many young Nisei were turned away from positions for which they were highly qualified. They

the japanese and “money trees” 53

found themselves part of two cultures, the traditional Japanese ways of their parents and also of the new American society.

Vocabularypicture bride haole bango luna machete blood unionsconspiracy propaganda obon kimonos taiko drums Pidgin English hostility Oriental backlash intensive agriculture Nisei Isei

Discussion Questions1. In the mid-1800s, what did Japan do to try to prevent

what was happening in China?2. Find these locations on a world map: Japan, Hawaii,

China, Korea, the Philippines, and Portugal.3. How does this chapter portray life for women in Japan

versus women’s lives in China?4. What was the 1907 Gentleman’s Agreement?5. Explain the status system of employment on Hawaiian

plantations.6. What was a workday like in a Hawaiian canefield?7. Discuss the Japanese strike of 1909.8. As we have seen in previous chapters, the planters

used “divide and control” as a tactic on the plantation workers. Explain.

9. What were living conditions like for workers on the Hawaiian plantations?

10. Describe the Japanese communities on the plantations.11. What was Pidgin English?12. Planters wanted to keep workers from getting too


much education. Where have we encountered this at-titude before?

13. What developments made a difference in food ship-ment in 1920s California?

14. Find the Sacramento and Imperial Valleys on a map of California.

15. Explain the differences between Issei and Nisei. How did their lives in America differ?

16. Monica Sone writes (page 211) how growing up in America gave the Nisei a sense of “twoness.” What did she mean?

Activities1. Summarize this chapter using haiku form.2. Research: How did Hawaii change from its own king-

dom to becoming US territory?3. Research the development of the sugar industry in Ha-

waii. How did sugarcane come to be a major crop?4. Research: What would economic life be like in 1915 in

Hawaii for a fieldworker?5. Research: Find a detailed map of Hawaii. How much of

the land was devoted to crops? What were they?6. Research: Where did the word pidgin come from? How

did the language develop?7. What are some basic words and from where did they come?8. Research: Who was Daniel Inouye? What was remark-

able about his life?9. Research: What is the value of California’s agriculture

industry today? How do Japanese Americans play a part?

10. Research: What is the connotation of the word oriental?

the japanese and “money trees” 55

Why is the use of the word to describe people consid-ered inappropriate?

11. Research: Takaki writes of “the depth of the belief that America was meant to be white.” Where did this idea come from? Is this belief still current?

Primary Document Analysis Cartoon: Patient waiters are no losers

Retrieved from http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3g04133/

Cartoon: As to Japanese exclusionRetrieved from http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/ppms-

ca.26148/Photograph: Japanese sugarcane worker, Maui, Hawaii, 1932.

Retrieved from http://www.corbisimages.com/stock-photo/rights-managed/BE054195/japanese-cutting-sugar-cane-on-maui

Song lyrics: Hole Hole BushiRetrieved from http://clear.uhwo.hawaii.edu/HoleBushi.html

Resource Film: Picture Bride, (1995). Miramax Films.

57

C H A P T E R E L E V E N

JEWS ARE PUSHED FROM RUSSIA

Chapter ThesisFrom 1880 to the early twentieth century, anti-Semitism, particu-larly in Russia, drove large waves of Jews to immigrate to the Unit-ed States. There they succeeded as merchants, factory workers, and skilled craftsmen. Here, also, they were met with distrust and bias as they became successful citizens, labor leaders, and educated Amer-icans.

Chapter SummaryAnti-Semitism was at its peak in Eastern Europe and Russia in the 1880s. Jews there were confined to ghettos and victimized by pogroms. Residents were convinced that they had to leave for America; unlike other nationalities that had emigrated, the Jews already knew they would not return home someday.

By 1914, one-third of Jews had fled, mostly to the United States. They braved long unpleasant sea voyages. Although poor, most of these immigrants were educated and they came as whole families. After clearing Ellis Island, many settled in New York’s Lower East Side, often crammed into crowded ten-ements. They began businesses and civic organizations in their neighborhoods.

Many Jewish émigrés had sewing skills, so they got involved


in the garment industry. Concentrated in these new ghettos, many sweatshops thrived. Immigrants did piecework, which meant hard and monotonous work and long hours, getting paid for turning out as many garments as possible. One gar-ment factory, the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, became noto-rious as the site of a tragic fire where 146 young Jewish and Italian women workers died.

Workers had been agitating for few hours and more pay. The International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union had just been founded, but it was not yet powerful enough to make an impact. The workers took action on their own; up to 20,000, mostly Jewish women, demanded a fifty-two hour workweek, overtime pay, and recognition of the union. Other strikes fol-lowed and the workers began to make progress.

Jewish immigrants were called “greenhorns” when they didn’t blend in quickly enough. They worked avidly at losing their foreignness to prove they were now Americans. They dressed like Americans, abandoned Yiddish, changed their names, and adopted American holidays such as Christmas. The young men enrolled in colleges to enter the professions, but many of the schools, such as Harvard, began to screen out Jewish applicants who were often resented because they made the non-Jewish students look like underachievers.

This immigrant group faced the same nativism as have oth-er groups. Americans viewed the Russian and Eastern Euro-pean Jews as culturally different and invasive. Americans felt threatened by Jewish advocacy for labor reform and the strikes that followed. In 1924, Congress passed the Immigration Law that established a maximum quota for admission to the United States. Now, only 2 percent of the total numbers of a nationality already in the US were allowed to enter.

the jews are pushed from russia 59

VocabularyGentile repression Pale of Settlement shtetl inevitable anti-Semitic pogrom Passover synagogue persecution enraptured ghetto tenement peddler sweatshopcompromise greenhorn assimilationYiddish dominant quota appalled Landmanschaft

Discussion Questions1. Show on a world map where most of the Jews in this

movement originated.2. Why did so many Jews leave Russia in the 1880s?3. What was the overseas passage like for Jewish immigrants?4. In what ways did Jewish immigrants differ from those

from southern Italy?5. Why did such a slight percentage of Jewish immigrants

return to their homelands?6. What was tenement life like?7. Why did the garment (clothing) industry attract so

many Jewish immigrants?8. Why had the New York garment industry changed so

much in the latter half of the nineteenth century?9. What were New York sweatshops like in the early twen-

tieth century?10. What were working conditions like in the Triangle

Shirtwaist Company? Describe the tragedy that drew attention to these conditions.

11. What was the life of a Jewish working girl like in early 1900s New York?


12. What was the Great Strike of 1909–10? What were the results?

13. How did “greenhorns” assimilate into their new Amer-ican environment?

14. What were the signs that Jewish immigrants were be-coming Americans?

15. How was life different for Jewish immigrant daughters than for sons?

16. How did many top American colleges and universities react to the influx of Jewish students?

17. Why were student applicants to Harvard in the 1920s required to submit a photograph?

18. How did the “quota system” work in the Immigration Law of 1924?

19. Why were native-born Americans threatened by the ar-rival of Jews?

Activities1. Research: List the many different reasons that people

become refugees. Create a poster that explains each.2. Research: What is the etymology (origin of the words) of

the “Pale of Settlement”? On a world map, show where these areas were.

3. Research: Trace the growth of anti-Semitism in Russia and Eastern Europe. What are some examples? How did the perpetrators justify their hatred of Jews?

4. Research: What happened in the pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe?

5. Research: By World War I’s beginning, a third of the Jews in Russia and Eastern Europe had emigrated. How many people was that?


6. Research: Who was Emma Goldman? How did her ex-periences lead to her life of activism?

7. Research: How did Ellis Island become the arrival sta-tion for immigrants to the eastern United States? What was it before it became an immigration entry point?

8. Research: Describe the experience for an immigrant upon arriving at Ellis Island.

9. Research: Draw a diagram of a typical New York tene-ment around the time of the peak of Jewish immigra-tion.

10. Research: Who was Jacob Riis? Why is he important?11. Research: What is the status of the sweatshop today?12. Research: The International Ladies Garment Workers’

was new at the time of the Great Strike. How did that organization influence the garment industry after-wards?

13. Research: Dig deeper into the life of Clara Lemlich. Who were some other activist workers in the early twentieth century? Why do some people become activ-ists while others do not?

14. Research: How did Yiddish and other immigrant lan-guages influence English? What word became part of American English?

15. Research: How (if at all) has your family name (and names of relatives) changed since your own family left (or lost) its original homeland?

16. Research: How has anti-Semitism influenced higher education?

17. Research: What is physiognomy? Provide some visual examples. Do you think it is a valid science? Why or why not?


18. Research: What was the impact of the Immigration Law of 1923? How long did the quota system stay in effect? Is there still a quota system in the United States today?

19. Research: What were attitudes toward Jewish (or any other) immigrants in your own community in the early twentieth century?

Primary Document AnalysisLetters to the Jewish Daily Forward

Retrieved from http://wwphs.sharpschool.com/UserFiles/Servers/Server_10640642/File/bugge/Chapter%2023/Let-ters%20to%20the%20Jewish%20Daily%20Forward.pdf

Photograph: Home-work (crochet) in eastside tenement homeRetrieved from http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/

nclc.04268/Photographs (a large selection of tenement photographs)

Retrieved from http://www.loc.gov/search/?q=tenement&-fa=site%3Apictures&st=gallery

Photographs (and documents) of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Retrieved from http://www.loc.gov/search/?q=triangle+shirt-

waist+company&st=gallerySong: vos ken yu makh! s’iz amerike (Yiddish)(What can you do, it’s America?)

Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmR-Za8tGq_4

Yiddish (with parallel English translation)Retrieved from http://zemerl.com/cgi-bin/show.pl?ti-

tle=Vot+Ken+You+Makh%3F+Es+is+Amerike


Additional ResourcesAudio: Only in America: Program 1; The first Jews

Retrieved from http://www2.prx.org/pieces/18211Audio: Only in America: Program 2: The streets were paved with gold: A journey through the Jewish Lower East Side of New York, Part 1

Retrieved from http://www2.prx.org/pieces/18203Audio: Only in America: Program 3: Becoming Americans: A journey through the Jewish Lower East Side of New York, Part 2

Retrieved from http://www2.prx.org/pieces/18202Website: Ellis Island

Retrieved from http://www.ellisisland.org/genealogy/ellis_island.asp

Website: Tenement MuseumRetrieved from http://www.tenement.org/

65

C H A P T E R T W E L V E

UP FROM MEXICO

Chapter ThesisBecause of proximity to the United States, Mexican immi-gration was somewhat easy. Poverty and violence in Mexico in the early 1900s drove a Mexican exodus; the US need-ed the laborers for low-level jobs. Active participation in labor movements confounded the stereotype of the passive Mexican, but when economic hardship such as the Great Depression came to the gringos, Mexican workers were scapegoated as the cause. By living close together in barrios, Mexicans found solidarity that helped them survive.

Chapter SummaryIn the early twentieth century, passage from Mexico into the United States was not difficult. Across the bor-der was el norte, economic opportunity, but it was not only to escape poverty that the immigrants came. In 1910, Mexico was rocked by a revolution. A new rail-road into Mexico also facilitated the exit. More than 750,000 Mexicans left their country.


The immigrants worked in low-level jobs doing manual la-bor in factories and as janitors and gardeners. Many followed the crops with the seasons. Their temporary homes were little more than shacks. When the Great Depression arrived, Mexi-can farm workers’ wages got even smaller. In 1933, a Mexican labor union began a strike against these cuts, which angered the owners. Eventually, after much sacrifice on the part of the laborers, the bosses relented and wages were increased.

An interesting development was the joining together of farm workers from the Indian Punjab and the Mexican labor-ers. These Sikhs could not be American citizens because they were not considered white. Non-citizens could not buy land. Some married Mexican wives who were US citizens and so they acquired acreage; another result was hybrid culture.

These Mexican workers often lived together in barrios, seg-regated poor neighborhoods that reinforced Mexican culture and supported new immigrants. At that time, their children were not allowed to go to white schools. They were often vic-timized by teachers’ low expectations. At the same time, the popular press fed white fears of the Mexicanization of America. In turn, there were mass deportations back to Mexico, and even some of those were American-born, and therefore citizens.

VocabularyEl Norte migratory squalid Great Depression passive militancygringo Sikh rotiscompadrazgo Anglo inferioritybarrio nativist repatriationdeportation dilapidated asistencianostalgia Nuyorican destitute

up from mexico 67

Discussion Question1. How did most Mexicans enter the United States in the

early 1900s?2. What was life like for many rural people in Mexico in

the early 1900s?3. What technological development in 1895 increased

Mexican immigration? Why?4. How many Mexican immigrants entered the US be-

tween 1900 and 1930? Where did they settle?5. What were the primary jobs that these Mexican immi-

grants worked?6. Why did California farmers turn to hiring Mexican la-

bor in the early 1900s?7. Describe the living conditions for many Mexican mi-

grant laborers.8. Why were Mexican workers likely to join in with labor

struggles?9. Describe the 1933 San Joaquin Labor Strike.10. Why did some Sikh men want to marry Mexican wom-

en?11. Describe a Mexican barrio. What were the benefits of

living there?12. Once again, we read of people in power who did not

want their workers to get an education: “Educated Mex-icans are the hardest to handle.” What is so dangerous about education?

13. Why were nativists hostile to Mexican immigrants?14. Why was life for Mexican immigrants even harsher

during the Great Depression?15. Discuss the role of social class in the barrios.


Activities1. Research: What were the issues of the Mexican Revo-

lution of 1910? 2. Research: Using maps of the US and Mexico, show the

origins of Mexican immigrants and where they settled in the US between 1900 and 1930.

3. Research: Using a current US map, show the areas of heaviest Mexican population today.

4. Research: Mexicans are only one kind of Latin Amer-ican. Research the various names and origins of Lati-nos/Latinas that often immigrate today.

5. Research: What are the issues about Latino immigra-tion that are being debated today? What are the argu-ments for and against legalization of immigrants who have been in the US for many years?

6. Research: What is the economic impact of the presence of Latino immigrants in the US today? Provide statis-tics and visuals.

7. Research: What are Sikhs? What do they believe? 8. Research: Takaki writes about marriages between

Sikhs and Indians. Find evidence of these families to-day; how have they combined their cultural practices?

9. Research: Show Spanish Harlem on a map of New York. What is that neighborhood’s history and culture? What is life like there?

Primary document analysis: Song/video: Planewreck Over Los Gatos Canyon (written by Woody Guthrie)Performed by Johnny Rodriguez

Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v= y65Rgg2bBVE&list=PLtPQbKt7l5GGpZg-LGpYe_zZj3jd-

up from mexico 69

pXFt7Photograph: Mexican emigrating to US, Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, 1912

Retrieved from http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3b43585/

Photograph: Homes of Mexican field workers, Brawley, Impe-rial Valley, California, 1935

Retrieved from http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/fsa.8b38231/

Photographs and documents of Mexican repatriation of the 1930sRetrieved from http://www.google.com/images?-

client=safari&rls=en&q=%22Mexican+repatria-tion%22&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ei=l2v1Ud_ZD4mY9gTHg4HYAw&ved=0C-CQQsAQ

Photograph: Border guards speak with Mexicans on a road 1940-1950

Retrieved from http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/two-american-border-patrols-question-ing-two-mexican-men-news-photo/105214806

71

C H A P T E R T H I R T E E N

BLACKS ARRIVE IN NORTHERN CITIES

Chapter ThesisSocial conditions for this ethnic/racial group forced it to immigrate within its own country. Racism’s residue of poverty and violence led to thousands of African Americans fleeing the South for a better life in the North. They found higher pay and more jobs, but they also encountered racism in other forms. Rents were high, neighborhoods segregated, hiring was selective, and violence was used to terrorize. Still, these immigrants persisted and in doing so, created new oppor-tunities for self-determination.

Chapter SummaryJust as Mexicans traveled north in the early twentieth centu-ry, so did southern blacks. Living in poverty and a harsh racial apartheid, many had worked as sharecroppers, a system only a few steps from slavery. Young African Americans were no longer so willing to defer to the older southern expectation that blacks ought to be polite and passive. They wanted new lives and fair wages. Two million emigrated.

World War I was raging in Europe, and so factories needed workers to replace those who had gone to be soldiers. Chicago


was one destination, but not all white residents wanted the new immigrants. Whites resisted having black neighbors and co-work-ers, often with violence. Blacks were often exploited to subvert the growing power of unions. In one case, company owners were be-hind the formation of a black union, a blatant effort to keep black and white labor at odds. Still, black leaders began to recognize that they needed to pursue self-reliance by forming businesses and as-sociations within their own communities.

Harlem, in New York City, also attracted many of the south-ern migrants. Rents rose and the neighborhoods soon became crowded, but still they came. It was the time of the “New Negro Renaissance.” Artists, musicians, and intellectuals promoted a sense of black pride. During this time, a black nationalist, Mar-cus Garvey, began a movement to unite African Americans to move en masse to Africa to create a “Negro nation.”

In contrast to the bright promise of the renaissance, Harlem had actually become a ghetto. The Great Depression hit poor blacks particularly hard. They were often the first to be let go from their jobs. Many of their southern relatives were unemployed. The major unions, The United Mine Workers and the United Auto Workers, had begun to recruit black members, which was con-trary to the usual racial divisions. Also, the Democratic Party had begun to recognize African American demands, and in turn, black citizens began to turn away from Republicans, Lincoln’s party.

Vocabularysharecropper NAACP tenant farmerNew Negro Renaissance

Discussion Questions1. In what ways was the life of a sharecropper different

from or like the life of a slave?

blacks arrive in northern cities 73

2. How had black people in the South changed since emancipation?

3. How did many white southerners regard young blacks in the early twentieth century? Why?

4. How did African American migrants counter the rac-ism they found in Chicago?

5. Describe the demographic changes of Harlem from 1790 to the present.

6. How did the Great Depression affect various races and classes, especially African Americans?

7. Why did unemployment rates differ between blacks and whites?

8. Discuss the roles of unions in ending racial discrimi-nation.

9. Explain the widespread shift of black Americans from Republicans to Democrats.

Activities1. Research the life and work of Zora Neale Hurston.2. Research the effect that the Great Migration had on ar-

eas that were abandoned and the cities the migrants moved to.

3. Research: Takaki quotes a black worker who once made $1.25 to $1.50 a day in Georgia who then made $2.75 a day after he moved to New Jersey. What quality of life could someone expect to have at those wages at that time?

4. Research: What were some of the jobs that black mi-grants got in Chicago? What did they pay? Did white workers who did the same jobs get the same wages?

5. Research the terrorism Southern blacks lived with (as Takaki cites on page 259).


6. Research: locate a descendant of the Great Migration and interview him or her about the family’s legacy.

7. Research: Label a map of the United States to show where many Southern blacks originated and where they ended up after the Great Migration.

8. Research: How much was train fare from various southern locations (during the Great Migration) to Chi-cago and New York?

9. Research: Describe life in 1917 Chicago for African Americans who wanted to live in previously white neighborhoods.

10. Research: What was “the Negro Capital of the World” (Harlem, New York) like in the 1910s and 1920s?

11. Research: Choose a figure from the Harlem Renais-sance: Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Jean Toom-er, Countee Cullen, Paul Robeson, Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence, Anne Bethel Spencer, May Howard Jackson, Jesse Redmon Fauset, Gwendolyn Bennett, Georgia Douglas Johnson (or other). Who were they? Why were they special? What did they contribute to American life?

12. Research: What is the NAACP? Who began it and when? What has been its role in African American his-tory? Who can presently be a member and how?

13. Research: Who was Marcus Garvey? What was his con-tribution to twentieth century African American his-tory?

Primary document analysis: Document: Draft of Langston Hughes poem

Retrieved from http://www.loc.gov/search/?q =langston+hughes+poem

blacks arrive in northern cities 75

Photograph: Renaissance Casino in HarlemRetrieved from http://gayharlem.wikischolars.columbia.

edu/file/view/RenaissanceCasino.jpg/225286530/Renais-sanceCasino.jpg

Photograph: Sharecropper’s cabin in Arkansas, 1935Retrieved from http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/

fsa1997016740/PP/Song: Strange Fruit (includes video of performance by Billie Holiday and lyrics)

Retrieved from http://www.lyricsfreak.com/b/billie+holiday/strange+fruit_20017859.html

Website: Numerous photographs and maps of the Great Mi-gration

Retrieved from http://www.google.com/images?client=sa-fari&rls=en&q=great+migration&oe=UTF8&hl=en&sa=X-&oi=image_result_group&ei=7sz3UaTNMY_C9gSPsYDg-CA&ved=0CDEQsAQ\

Website: Black Business Network. Features photographs of Marcus Garvey and other primary documents (newspaper, fly-er) that promoted Black Nationalism

Retrieved from http://www.blackbusinessnetwork.com/Mar-cusGarvey/

Teacher’s Guide Primary Source Set: The Harlem RenaissanceRetrieved from http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroomma-

terials/primarysourcesets/harlem-renaissance/pdf/teach-er_guide.pdf

77

C H A P T E R F O U R T E E N

WORLD WAR II AND AMERICA’S ETHNIC

PROBLEM

Chapter ThesisNo matter the unjust treatment they had received, the non-white citizens of the United States still tried to prove their loyalty to a country that had not always returned that affection.

Chapter SummarySet in the context of World War II, Takaki revisits each of the race/ethnic groups he had centered on in previous chapters. One irony is that war was framed as a struggle with the fascist German “master race” which sought to eliminate “inferior” non-Aryans (along with Gypsies, the disabled, homosexuals, and Catholics); others saw that the United States needed to confront and repair its own racist history and its present.

After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Japanese Americans were rounded up into internment camps, kept separate from their own country, based not on their actions, but on their heritage. Still these citizens enlisted by the thousands in the fight against the Axis; some served in intelligence, helping to translate (and foil) Japanese battle plans. Some returned


as military heroes, but were made to feel unwelcome in their hometowns.

African Americans, too, joined the war effort. The segre-gation they had experienced in everyday life continued in the armed forces. They were often placed into the basest or most hazardous jobs. Yet, the Tuskegee Airmen flew with distinc-tion; black combatants prevailed in battle. Black citizens were outraged that FDR continued to preserve a segregated military, but as the defense industry faced labor shortages, the president had to permit integration. Black workers kept the factories go-ing, but the outside environment was unwelcoming and some-times violent.

Chinese Americans, too, responded patriotically to the war. They felt that enlisting would earn them respect. Both men and women worked in the defense industry. The Chinese Exclusion Act, still in effect, was at last repealed, allowing for naturalization.

Mexican Americans also served, seeking to prove their wor-thiness as citizens. Some became heroes; many died. Mexican immigrants came as braceros, or guest workers, to fill in on farms for those who had gone to war. Mexican Americans, both men and women, worked in defense plants. Not only were they contributing to the war effort, they were integrating themselves into mainstream America.

Takaki addresses the paradox of Native American patriotism. Why would they join the US armed forces after hundreds of years of losing their homelands to this country? They were proud and patriotic, but they were also looking for a way out of the poverty into which American policies had herded them. Navajos made a special contribution. Their language, which was exceptionally complex, proved to be ideal for use as an un-breakable code to send highly classified messages. Their skill

wwii and america’s ethnic problem 79

was invaluable in the Marine’s conquest of Iwo Jima. Yet, on their return to their reservations, their economic prospects had not improved, but perhaps even worsened.

The substantial Jewish population in the United States was safe, but how were they to respond to the Nazi’s anti-Semitism and persecution of their people in Europe? Their fellow Ameri-cans seemed opposed to taking action. Symptomatic of the pre-vailing isolationist mood, President Roosevelt denied US entry of the St. Louis, a ship full of German Jewish refugees. Eventu-ally, FDR partially relented by planning for removal of Jews to North Africa and for 1,000 to come to the United States, but it was too little, and too late, as up to six million Jews were even-tually exterminated. It is because of the US’s slow response to the Holocaust that the Zionist call for a Jewish homeland increased and so, in 1948, Palestine was divided to create the new nation, Israel.

After FDR died, President Truman wanted the war to end and for the Japanese to pay dearly. The Manhattan Project had pro-duced a workable atomic bomb. Truman authorized its use on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In 1945, both cities were incinerated; hundreds of thousands of Japanese were obliterated. That war had ended. Still, the struggle against racial and ethnic prejudice at home had yet to be resolved.

Vocabularypersecution fascism internmentinternee barracks Holocaustregiment hypocrisy Jim Crowcivilian naturalized braceroriveter refugee Zionism unconditional


Discussion Questions1. Which countries formed the Axis powers and the Al-

lies during World War II?2. Explain the irony of the US going to fight Nazi racism.3. Why did the United States think people of Japanese de-

scent were more suspect of disloyalty than German or Italian Americans?

4. Who was General John Dewitt?5. How did the United States arrive at the decision to

round up Japanese Americans?6. What happened to the property (homes, farms, and

businesses) left behind Japanese American internees?7. Would you have volunteered for the armed services in

WWII if you were of Japanese (or African American or Native American) descent?

8. What contributions did Japanese Americans make to the war effort?

9. What were the roles of African Americans in WWII?10. Who were the Tuskegee Airmen?11. What were FDR’s attitudes toward race?12. Why did FDR give in to integrating the defense indus-

try?13. Why would Chinese Americans join the military in

WWII?14. How did WWII affect Chinese employment?15. What had been the history of the Chinese Exclu-

sion Act? How long had it been in force? How was it changed?

16. How did Mexican American civilians contribute to the war effort?

17. Why did Native Americans enlist?


18. What unique contribution did the Navajos make to winning the war?

19. Why do you think Americans resisted letting in Jewish refugees during WWII?

20. What was the story of the ship, the St. Louis?21. Explain FDR’s WWII Jewish policy.22. What was the Manhattan Project?23. Do you think the war with Japan would have ended if

Hiroshima and Nagasaki had not been bombed?24. What is the relevance of James G. Thompson in the

context of this chapter?

Activities1. Research: Create a War World II timeline, noting when

each of the world powers entered the war.2. Research: We are familiar with the Holocaust and its

systematic extermination of Jews. What other groups were targeted? Why? What was the result? How, if at all, did they resist?

3. Research: Sometimes, we may think that victims of the Holocaust, specifically the Jews, were passive, accept-ing their fates. This was, however, not the case, as there were many Jews, called partisans, who actively resisted the Nazis. Who were some of those partisans? How did they take action?

4. Research: Who was Fred Korematsu? What was his sto-ry and why is it important?

5. Research: What are reparations? Did Japanese Amer-icans internees deserve them? When if ever, did they receive them?

6. Research: Where were the Japanese internment camps


(show them on a map)? What was daily life like in these internment camps? Where can we still see what remains of these camps?

7. Research: Some white citizens were allies to the Japa-nese Americans when they were being interned into camps. Who were these people and what are some of their stories?

8. Research: Who were the Tuskegee airmen? What were their individual stories?

9. Research: Guy Louis Gabaldon was a war hero. What did he do? What was his life story?

10. Research: Navajos’ unique language was used as an unbreakable code in WWII. Who were these codetalk-ers? What are some of their stories?

11. Research: Many Native Americans had been educated in “boarding schools.” On a map, show where these schools were located. What were they like? What do Native Americans remember about them? How do they feel about them now? If possible, find a Native American to interview about this topic.

12. Research: The Jewish Holocaust is one of several geno-cides in the twentieth century. What other racial, re-ligious, or ethnic groups have been chosen for exter-mination? Create a timeline to demonstrate 1) what groups have been targeted 2) where each group is from 3) over what time period the genocides took place 4) how many people perished.

13. Research: How did the world react when Israel became a state in 1948? Explain the reasons for differing views.

14. Research: What were the physical impacts of the use of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?


Primary Document Analysis Audio: The Port Chicago 50: An oral history

Retrieved from http://www.prx.org/pieces/1227-the-port-chi-cago-50-an-oral-history

Cartoons: WWII-themed by Dr. Seuss; Dr. Seuss went to war.Retrieved from http://libraries.ucsd.edu/speccoll/dswent-

towar/Cartoons and Photographs (of the 1943 Detroit race riot): A race riot there will be

Retrieved from http://www.detroits-great-rebellion.com/De-troit---1943.html

Photograph: Crowd celebrating Victory Day in Times Square, 1945Retrieved from http://www.corbisimages.com/stock-photo/

rights-managed/DM3440/crowd-celebrating-victory-day-in-times-square

Propaganda: A selection of American-made propaganda posters from World War II

Retrieved from http://mcel.pacificu.edu/as/students/propa-ganda/top.html

Song: The House I Live In: Paul RobesonRetrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3syulB-

jkng

Resources, Japanese AmericansBooks (for teachers and older students)Avakian, M. (2002). Atlas of Asian-American history. New York;

Facts on File.Cooper, M. L. (2000). Fighting for honor: Japanese Americans

and World War II. New York: Clarion.Hoobler, D., & Hoobler, T. (1996). The Japanese American fami-

ly album. New York: Oxford.


85

Niiya B. (Ed.). (2001). Encyclopedia of Japanese American Histo-ry, (Updated edition). New York: Checkmark Books.

Tunnell, M. M., & Chilcoat, G. W. (1996The children of Topaz. The story of a Japanese-American internment camp. New York: Holiday House.

Yancey, D. (1998). Life in a Japanese internment camp. San Di-ego, CA: Lucent Books.

Books, fiction, (for children)Friedman, I. R. (1984). How my parents learned to eat. New York:

Houghton Mifflin.Mochizuki, K. (1995). Heroes. New York: Lee and Low.Mochizuki, K. (1993). Baseball saved us. New York: Scholastic.Uchida, Y. (1993). The bracelet. New York: Philomel.

Books, non-fiction (for children).Hamanaka, S. (1995). The Journey: Japanese Americans, racism,

and renewal. New York: Orchard Books.Welch, C. A. (2000). Children of the relocation camps. Minneap-

olis: Carolhroda Books.

85

C H A P T E R F I F T E E N

CALLS FOR CHANGE

Chapter ThesisIt took a while to gain momentum, but after World War II and the widespread participation of non-white American citizens, various ethnic and racial groups were no longer willing to accept a subor-dinate social status. African Americans, Japanese Americans, and Mexican Americans continued to pressure legislators and courts to recognize them as fully American.

Chapter SummaryHow were the ethnic and racial minorities to be satisfied with the treatment they still received in the United States even though they had sacrificed as much as any other citizen in World War II? One indicator of this new consciousness was the 1948 desegregation of the armed forces by President Truman in response to A. Philip Randolph’s advocacy.

Japanese Americans challenged California’s Alien Land Law of 1913, which forbade non-white land ownership. In 1948, the Supreme Court supported the petitioners, and then in 1952, Congress rescinded the Naturalization Act of 1790 that had lim-ited citizenship to white immigrants only. It was not until 1988 that the nation apologized to its Japanese Americans for their internment during WWII; each survivor was paid $20,000.


Mexican Americans did not want to regress to pre-war dis-crimination. Many became activists for equal employment rights. Caesar Chavez emerged as an advocate for farm work-ers to overcome prejudice, obtain higher pay, and work in safe-ty. Mexican American women, too, wanted to be sure that the progress they had made to be economically viable would not be eroded. Finally, these citizens took their demands to schools, which ended in outlawing segregation of any ethnic or racial groups.

The desegregation of schools in California opened the door for a Supreme Court case (Brown v. Board of Education) that would impact all US public schools. Segregation in any school was illegal, but it took many years for that ruling to be taken se-riously everywhere. With or without the law, some people were determined to get American society to face inequality. In 1955, Rosa Parks’ refusal to change seats on a Montgomery bus start-ed a bus boycott by black citizens that helped to push Martin Luther King into leadership.

The civil rights movement grew. All over the South, Afri-can American young people challenged segregation at lunch counters with sit-ins. White and black “freedom riders” risked their safety, sharing buses headed south, directly challenging the segregated status quo. Activists were murdered, and others beaten. In August of 1963, Dr. King led a huge march on Wash-ington, D.C. where he gave his noted “I have a dream” speech.

Jews seemed to be natural allies for African Americans in the civil rights movement because their own persecution was recent and fresh. Many of them joined in to register black southern voters. Sadly, some of that mutual good will was lost when African Americans recognized that Jews owned many of the businesses and rental properties in the north, and thus per-

calls for change 87

ceived them to be exploiting impoverished blacks. Also, new young black leaders like Stokely Carmichael and Malcolm X believed that black liberation needed to be initiated by blacks, not controlled by whites. Even with internal dissension, the movement did result in legislation that banned discrimination in housing, voting rights, and jobs.

But laws could not change everything. Poverty among Afri-can Americans was still far more egregious than among other groups. Leaders such as MLK, Robert Kennedy, and Malcolm X, who advocated for change, had been assassinated. It was a violent age. Many cities, primarily minority neighborhoods, erupted. The police who beat Rodney King in 1991 were ex-onerated in 1992 and Los Angeles exploded, and it was not only African Americans who showed their anger. Latinos also expressed their frustration.

Yet, in spite of the rawness and pain of racism, Americans elected their first African American president in 2008.

Vocabularyunconstitutional boycott rabbicongregation alliance

Discussion Questions1. Who was A. Philip Randolph?2. Why do you think Harry Truman agreed to integrate

the armed forces?3. Who were the Oyamas?4. What was California’s Alien Land Law?5. How did the Naturalization Act of 1790 change in 1952?

Why do you think it took so long to change this law?6. How do you feel about the reparations the US made to

Japanese Americans in 1988?


7. What was the GI Forum? What did it do? 8. Who was Caesar Chavez? 9. Discuss the significance of Mendez v. Westminster

School District of Orange County.10. How did Brown v. Board of Education affect US schools?11. What was the significance of the actions of Rosa Parks?12. Why were lunch counter sit-ins held? Why were they

important?13. What do you know about the August, 1963 March on

Washington?14. Why do you think so many Jewish people felt they

should be involved in the Civil Rights Movement?15. Why was black and Jewish solidarity eventually threat-

ened?16. Not all African Americans were satisfied with the tac-

tics Martin Luther King, Jr. used to fight racism. Why?17. What did the 1964-65 civil rights laws do? Do you think

they solved the problems of racism?18. Why do you think Koreans were targeted in the Los

Angeles riots of 1992?19. What does “post-racial” mean? Now that an Afri-

can American, Barack Obama, has been elected (and re-elected) as president, can we say that we are in a “post-racial America”?

20. Can you identify any injustices still evident in the world to-day? What injustices would you risk getting arrested to stop?

Activities1. Research: What is the background of A. Philip Ran-

dolph? Why was he able to influence Harry Truman to integrate the armed forces?

calls for change 89

2. Research: Where in the country were the Japanese in-ternment camps? What has happened to these struc-tures?

3. Research: How did Cesar Chavez become a leader for the United Farm Workers? What impact has that union had on the lives of migrant laborers? Is the union still active today?

4. Research: What was the Lemon Grove Incident? Why was it important?

5. Research: What was the background of the Brown v. Board of Education? Who was the “Brown” in the case? How did American schools respond to the order to de-segregate?

6. Research: Who was Thurgood Marshall? How did he rise to become a Supreme Court Justice?

7. Research: What was Rosa Parks’s background? Discuss whether what she did was just the spontaneous act of a tired workingwoman or something she had been plan-ning to do for a while.

8. Research: Who was Claudette Colvin?9. Research: What was life like for Dr. King and his family

during the Montgomery Bus Boycott?10. Research: Who were the leaders of the Greensboro,

North Carolina Woolworths sit-ins? Why did they get involved? What were their lives like after their actions?

11. Research: Ask local people if they know anyone who participated in the Civil Rights Movement, especially as a freedom rider. Try to locate such a person and in-terview him or her about the experiences they had and why they chose to act.

12. Research: Who was Medgar Evers?


13. Research: Find original newspaper articles about the 1963 March on Washington. Who planned it? How many people participated? What impact do you think the event had?

14. Research: Who were Chaney, Goodman, and Schwer-ner?

15. Research: Some other civil rights leaders sometimes thought Dr. King should have been more aggressive. Look for background on some of these figures: Mal-colm X, Stokely Carmichael, Eldridge Cleaver, and An-gela Davis.

16. Research: Compare unemployment rates of African Americans with those of white Americans over time. Show these statistics in a graph or table.

17. Research: How did President Lyndon Johnson attempt to address the problem of poverty in America?

18. Research: Who was Rodney King?

Primary Document Analysis Newspaper: Letters to the editor against freedom riders

Retrieved from http://www.freedomridersfoundation.org/images/photos-articles-artifacts/readers.view-point.06.22.61.jpg

Newspaper: Front page of Greensboro News and Record on day of sit-ins

Retrieved from http://www.sitins.com/2feb1960.pdfNewspaper: Bus Mixers Beaten

Retrieved from http://www.freedomridersfoundation.org/images/photos-articles-artifacts/bus.mixers.beat-en.05.15.1961.jpg

Poster: Boycott lettuce and grapes

calls for change 91

Retrieved from http://www.uic.edu/orgs/cwluherstory/CWLUGallery/Boycott.html

Video: Short clips and photographs of the Greensboro Sit-insRetrieved from http://www.travelchannel.com/video/histor-

ic-lunch-counter-sit-in-12547Website: The Sit-Ins; several photographs of lunch counter sit-ins

Retrieved from http://www.crmvet.org/images/imgcoll.htm

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C H A P T E R S I X T E E N

NEW WAVES OF NEWCOMERS

Chapter Thesis The world keeps coming to the United States, and each new arrival confronts both familiar issues and new ones: The previously settled group seems to say, “now that we are here, let us shut the door.” US foreign policy has helped to create new refugees: Chinese, Vietnam-ese, and Afghanis. Proximity has tempted Latin Americans, mostly Mexicans, to enter the US; they have contributed labor and paid taxes, but are denied citizenship. As a nation of immigrants, what should our response be?

Chapter SummaryAfter the gains of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, race was still an issue. War, poverty, and persecution still drives peo-ple from their homelands. This has been so for Chinese, Carib-bean peoples, Vietnamese, and Afghanis.

After Congress passed the Civil Rights Act in 1965, there were calls to address other issues of racial discrimination. Con-gress eliminated the racial quota system for immigration. As a result, Chinese entered the US in droves, especially to pursue higher education and be employed as skilled workers. Others


were not so qualified and they resorted to sweatshops where they worked long hours and had minimal protection from ex-ploitation. Even highly educated Chinese immigrants have had to work at menial jobs because their English skills had not been developed.

After the Vietnam War ended in 1975, a new wave of immi-gration began. Many Vietnamese immigrants had an education and were familiar with American ways. But times back home in a post-war Vietnam were difficult, and in 1979 a new surge of refugees took to the sea; this wave of Vietnamese were poor and many did not speak English.

A group from Afghanistan also came; their country had been ravaged by war, first by the Soviet Union, and then post 9-11 by the United States trying to eradicate the Taliban, fun-damentalist Muslims who wanted to return their country to a strict theocratic patriarchy. Afghani refugees in the US faced “Islamaphobia” so they pretended to be Mexican, Greek, or Ital-ian. In fact, anyone who even looked Arabic might be attacked.

Perhaps most controversial of all, the large number of Lati-nos in this country, mostly from Mexico, prompted calls for im-migration reform. Some Americans thought anyone who was undocumented had no right to stay but ought to be arrested and deported. Others argued that these foreign workers were already contributing, paying taxes, and doing jobs that were vi-tal to the economy. Some of these workers had come because US policies, perhaps indirectly, had flooded Mexico with our agricultural products, underselling farmers there, and helping to devastate their economy. The debate goes on. Should a clear path to citizenship be established? Can those undocumented immigrants, who have been living good lives and acting as citi-zens, be allowed to stay?

new waves of newcomers 95

Vocabularytapestry menial assimilatesanctuary slur hijabnativist undeportable enmeshedrecession subsidy NAFTADREAM Act undocumented

Discussion Questions1. What are the various reasons why people leave their

homelands?2. Why does Takaki specify “black Africa” (page 318) and

not just “Africa”?3. Why did Congress wait until 1965 to remove restric-

tions on Asian immigrants?4. Why do you think there have been such a high num-

ber of international students (especially Asians) in US universities?

5. There were two waves of Vietnamese refugees; what drove each of these groups to immigrate?

6. Why do you think there was so much discrimination against Vietnamese immigrants in the US?

7. Discuss the problems Vietnamese immigrants faced in adapting to life in the US.

8. What was the Cold War?9. Discuss the wars in Afghanistan since the late 1970s.10. Why did the September 11 attacks (9-11) result in an

attack on Afghanistan?11. Why have Afghani immigrants to the US sometimes

pretended to be from other countries?12. What is NAFTA? What have been its effects?13. What is the DREAM Act?


Activities1. Research: Create a table that shows US immigration

quotas for ethnicities/nationalities for the twentieth century.

2. Research sweatshops in the present day US. What can consumers do to improve conditions?

3. Research: What is the Comprehensive Training Act? Does it still exist?

4. Research: What were the causes of the Vietnam War? Why was this war so divisive in the US?

5. Research: Interview Vietnam veterans for their per-spectives on the war.

6. Research: Interview Vietnamese immigrants (or their descendants) about their experiences in America.

7. Research: Where in the United States are the largest Vietnamese communities? Show these on a map. What are their populations?

8. Research: What other groups of Asians have immigrat-ed to the US since the Vietnamese came? Where did they settle?

9. Research: Who/what are the Taliban. What do they be-lieve? Why would a group like the Taliban gain strength in Afghanistan?

10. Research: What are the major branches of Islam? On what beliefs do they differ?

11. Research: What are the positions that politicians take today about Mexican immigration? Using interviews with immigrants and other research as resources, cre-ate teams to debate how the current controversies over (Mexican) immigrant reform could be resolved.

new waves of newcomers 97

Primary Document AnalysisCartoon: A “snooty” Statue of Liberty

Retrieved from http://myloc.gov/Exhibitions/herblock/Clas-sicCartoons/ExhibitObjects/WhatHappenedtotheOne.aspx

Newsreel: Fall of SaigonRetrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdR2Iktf-

fawPhotograph: Vietnamese Boat People

Retrieved from http://www.racismnoway.com.au/teach-ing-resources/e_challenges/Boat%20People/graph-ics/b-w-boatpeople.jpg

Cartoons: Assortment on contemporary sweatshopsRetrieved from http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/s/

sweatshops.aspPosters: Several posters on contemporary immigrants’ rights

Retrieved from http://favianna.typepad.com/faviannacom_art_activism/please-help-fund-this-imm.html

Traffic Sign: Mexican ImmigrantsRetrieved from http://floramary.files.wordpress.

com/2008/05/prohibido_fleeing_migrants_sign_mexi-co_border.jpg

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C H A P T E R S E V E N T E E N

“WE WILL ALL BE MINORITIES”

Chapter ThesisSometime in the twenty-first century, the American population will have shifted so that whites are no longer in the majority. In fact, there will be no majority at all, as the many different ethnicities, cultures, and nationalities will each be strongly represented. The challenge to us as Americans is to admit the errors we have made as well as to celebrate and encourage the contributions of all people.

Chapter SummaryDuring the Clinton presidency, Takaki was a consultant as the president prepared a speech about race. Clinton used this speech to launch The President’s Initiative on Race. Its content acknowledged the hard road many non-white minorities had been walking in trying to become full Americans.

Although we have many different origins, we need to identify how this wide variety of immigrants has contributed to Ameri-ca’s unique cultures. Through pain, they have worked to abolish slavery, integrated the armed forces, desegregated public schools, brought in new citizens of all races, supported interracial mar-riages, tried to rectify the treatment of Japanese Americans in WWII, and helped the US to see how diversity strengthens it.


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Vocabularydemography

Discussion Questions1. Explain the chapter title, “We will all be minorities.”2. Why should we acknowledge all of our nation’s history,

even its mistakes and flaws?3. What does Takaki identify as “America’s dilemma”?

Why?4. What do you think the future holds for diversity in the

US?5. Is racism and discrimination behind us now? Explain

your answer.

Activities1. Research the name of your state, town, county, street,

and school. Determine whether any of these names in-dicate connections to ethnic or racial diversities.

2. Research: What do demographers predict about the percentages of US racial populations in fifty years?

Primary Document Analysis Cartoon: Non-white babies now outnumber white babies

Retrieved from http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/article/white-babies-114622

ResourceOne America in the 21st Century: The President’s Initiative on Race

Retrieved from https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/173431.pdf

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other books about multicultural america by

ronald takaki

Takaki, R. (2002). Debating Diversity: Clashing Perspectives on Race and Ethnicity in America. New York: Oxford.

Takaki, R. (2000). Double Victory: A Multicultural History of America in World War II. New York: Little, Brown.

Takaki, R. (2000). Iron Cages: Race and Culture in Nineteenth-cen-tury America. New York: Oxford.

Takaki, R. (1998). A Larger Memory: A History of our Diversity, with Voices. New York: Little, Brown.

Takaki, R.(Ed.) (1994). From Different Shores: Perspectives on Race and Ethnicity in America. New York: Oxford.

Takaki, R. (1989) Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans. New York: Little, Brown.

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education standards

A Different Mirror for Young People is appropriate for upper ele-mentary and middle grades (and for lower high school grades). The standards used to create this text are listed below:

The Common Core State StandardsRetrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/

RH/6-8

Key Ideas and Details • Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of pri-

mary and secondary sources.• Determine the central ideas or information of a prima-

ry or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of the source distinct from prior knowledge or opinions.

• Identify key steps in a text’s description of a process re-lated to history/social studies (e.g., how a bill becomes law, how interest rates are raised or lowered).

Craft and Structure • Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they


are used in a text, including vocabulary specific to do-mains related to history/social studies.

• Describe how a text presents information (e.g., sequen-tially, comparatively, causally).

• Identify aspects of a text that reveal an author’s point of view or purpose (e.g., loaded language, inclusion or avoidance of particular facts).

Integration of Knowledge and Ideas • Integrate visual information (e.g., in charts, graphs,

photographs, videos, or maps) with other information in print and digital texts.

• Distinguish among fact, opinion, and reasoned judg-ment in a text.

• Analyze the relationship between a primary and sec-ondary source on the same topic.

Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity • By the end of grade 8, read and comprehend history/

social studies texts in the grades 6–8 text complexity band independently and proficiently.

The Ten Themes Identified by the National Council for the Social Studies

Retrieved from http://www.socialstudies.org/standards/strands

I Culture: Social studies programs should include expe-riences that provide for the study of culture and cultur-al diversity.

II Time, Continuity, and Change: Social studies pro-grams should include experiences that provide for the study of the past and its legacy.

education standards 105

III People, Places, and Environments: Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of people, places, and environments.

IV Individual Development and Identity: Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of individual development and identity.

V Individuals, Groups, and Institutions: Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of interactions among individuals, groups, and institutions.

VI Power, Authority, and Governance: Social stud-ies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of how people create, interact with, and change structures of power, authority, and governance.

VII Production, Distribution, and Consumption: Social studies programs should include experiences that pro-vide for the study of how people organize for the pro-duction, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.

VIII Science, Technology, and Society: Social studies pro-grams should include experiences that provide for the study of relationships among science, technology, and society.

IX Global Connections: Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of global connections and interdependence.

X Civic Ideals and Practices: Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of the ideals, principles, and practices of citizenship in a democratic republic


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about this teaching guide’s author

Dr. Russell Binkley is an Associate Professor of Social Studies Education at Western Carolina University. He researches race, class, gender, religion, and sexual orientation in teaching for social justice.

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